A bank in Taiwan backed Wen Shan Chang’s play for the former Westfield Santa Anita mall, The Real Deal has learned.
Chang, who is based in Monrovia, scored a $352.5 million loan from Mega International Commercial Bank to buy the 1.5 million-square-foot mall in Arcadia last month, according to loan documents filed with L.A. County.
Terms of the loan were not disclosed.
Chang bought the shopping center at 400 South Baldwin Avenue for $538 million in August through an entity named Riderwood USA, according to property records and an announcement from Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, though the latter did not disclose the buyer.
Based in Taipei, Mega ICBC has provided few loans for commercial properties in L.A. over the last few years, according to an analysis of public records.
In 2016, New York authorities hit the bank with a $180 million fine for a variety of violations, including sloppy oversight of risk exposure in Panama. Australian regulators in 2009 also found that Mega ICBC’s “risk management systems were inadequate and ineffective,” according to documents signed by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.
After Taiwan strengthened regulations around real estate lending, Mega ICBC also “became more cautious when conducting real estate loan businesses,” the company said in an annual report earlier this year. About 47 percent of the company’s committed loans are secured by real estate.
About 4 percent of the company’s loans on its balance sheet were committed to entities in North America last year, according to the report, making Chang’s Riderwood one of the few U.S. organizations to secure a loan from the Taiwanese bank.
The shopping mall is one of, if not the largest, purchase ever made by Chang and other entities managed by him.
In 2004, S.M. Broadway, a corporation managed by Chang, sold a 113,000-square-foot building at 520 Broadway in Santa Monica for $31.6 million, records show. A different entity managed by Chang sold a four-building retail portfolio in Little Tokyo in 2007 for $41 million.
Through an entity named L.A. Wilshire, Chang also owns two motels in Las Vegas.